


Connected

by LadyMerlin



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Child Neglect, F/M, Family, Gen, I did not have a beta and that is a warning, References to Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, References to PTSD, Second Chances, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony and Pepper break up, Tony's protege, friends - Freeform, post im3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-02
Updated: 2013-07-02
Packaged: 2017-12-16 21:29:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/866815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyMerlin/pseuds/LadyMerlin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They laugh, and Tony buys Harley a beer and asks him about his work and later Tony quietly makes sure that Harley’s project gets the funding it needs. The same way he made sure that Harley got into a good college and had the right scholarships. Because Harley saved him when he had no one(and maybe, just maybe because if only for that one night Harley was the closest Tony ever came to having a son.)<br/>(taken from the prompt)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Connected

**Author's Note:**

> Written for an idea I came across on Tumblr [here](http://deanwhoflirtswitheveryone.tumblr.com/post/53330832434/ten-years-down-the-road-tony-is-at-a-science). Credit to deanwhoflirtswitheveryone on tumblr.
> 
> The prompt was not followed exactly, because it wasn't exactly a prompt, but I've used some of the dialogue word for word.

Tony expected the whole Harley thing to have come out, when the dust had settled. He expected that someone would have wheedled the story out of him, while trying to piece together the time line of his little adventure, and trying to figure out how exactly he’d managed it. Because he was a liar, but he rarely lied to himself, and it was fairly obvious that he’d _had_ to have had help from _someone_ , to have survived out there in Bumfuck, Tennessee.  But no one asks. And for some reason, he doesn’t tell. He’s perfectly fine with their assumption that he can conjure batteries and wire out of his ass.

For a while, he’s convinced that SHIELD knows. But the moment he’s well enough to get JARVIS up and running perfectly again, he checks their database, and as far as he can tell, they’ve written off his time in that town as irrelevant, until he bumped into Ms. Crazy FireLady. Brandt. Whatever. He’s not sure whether he’s pissed off at the lack of investigative effort, or whether he simply doesn’t care because he knows full well that if you want a job done right, you have to do it yourself. He doesn’t exactly have the best impression of SHIELD, after the trick Fury pulled with Coulson, so he’s pretty sure it’s the latter.

If someone asked him why he’d scoured every inch of every database he could hack, for traces of a little boy involved with the Mandarin incident, he wouldn’t have an answer.

He keeps that on his own books. Servers. He keeps that on his own servers, because no one uses books anymore. Harley is a secret between him, and JARVIS, and since JARVIS is based on his own brain-function, Harley is effectively his own little secret. It sounds a bit too much like he’s talking about his illegitimate son, but since he has no children (yes, he’s sure), and Harley doesn’t have a dad, he doesn’t see the harm in daydreaming. It’s only idle daydreams, after all. Nothing will come of them.

Sometimes he’ll see New York again, but not the view of it from his huge penthouse windows. He’ll see it from above. Far, _far_ above. A screenshot of New York, too loud and bright in contrast with the darkness and silence of space. No one else has seen what he has seen. He is literally the first man to have seen that. The first human being. Not even JARVIS has it on record. Tony had been alone, out there. And small. And alone. And the overwhelming pressure will come back, and he’ll have to retreat from the room, and leave who-ever it is standing, half way through a sentence, while he runs to his lab and hyperventilates to the sound of Harley telling him that he’s a mechanic, and that he can fix things!

He wants to call the kid up, sometimes. For no reason. Maybe to invite him up to New York with his mom, to visit Tony. But that’s going to be weird. And he doesn’t want to hear the kid turn him down, because he’s been turned down enough in his life to know to avoid hopeless causes. But Harley is far from a hopeless cause. Harley is. Well. Tony had known him for what, three days? Four? A week, tops. Harley is a smart kid. Very smart. He’s not a genius, like Tony, but he’s socialised, and Tony knows that counts for waaaaaaay _waaaaay_ more than simple genius now-a-days. And he’s pretty sharp. With a little training, he’d be good. He’d be impressive.

The thought of a protégé makes Tony’s heart beat just a little faster.

He breaks up with Pepper. Well, Pepper breaks up with him, if he’s being honest. He realizes later (bloody hindsight) that he’s been waiting for it to happen. They sort out Pepper’s Extremis problem, and then there’s something going on underneath the surface that he can’t place, while they’re both recovering. He’s Iron Man, but he doesn’t have his suits. Something is fundamentally off kilter, but Pepper is supposed to be enough to balance it out. But she’s not, and apparently he isn’t either. He loves her, more than he can express. But there’s any undercurrent of resentment, he wants to call it, because Iron Man represents everything that is good about him as a person, and she kinda made him give it up. He loves her, but he’s incomplete. And she probably decides she’s had enough of him bouncing off the walls with nothing to do. And then she breaks up with him. He’s working on the suits the next day.

Both his bed and his life are a little empty without her as his partner, but she’s still his friend, and they still love each other, just. Well. Just not enough. It stops being sad after a while. They’re better this way.

Even though he had _nothing_ to do without the suits, building them again leaves him with significant amounts of spare time. He’s always been mature enough to know exactly which boundaries to push, and how far. Pepper’s not his girlfriend anymore. She’s his CEO. Stark Industries is _his_ fucking company. He’s going to act like it. So he turns up to every meeting, and focuses, and is productive, and it feels good, even though he’ll never admit it. And still, he has spare time. And it feels like he’s on top of the world, even though he still sometimes has to leave the room half-way through a conversation, or if someone asks him about outer space.

He’s got his eye on Harley, even though he still hasn’t told anyone. He turns 12, and Tony sends him the mask from the Mark 42 with the HUD still intact, with a few upgrades. He’s been described as having the paternal instinct of a cheese grater, but even he knows that kids and weapons do not, ideally, mix. His story is different. And the Widow’s. And Hawkeye’s, come to think of it. He’s going to stick to his original story. Kids and weapons do not mix, ideally. He’s going to keep Harley out of it as much as he can, even if every instinct is screaming to bring him in, and train him up to be the next Iron Man.

But that’s thinking waaaay too far ahead, and there’s too many ‘what if’s’ in the way. He’s not even going to think about it. He is who he is today because a lot of his formative years were shaped without his input, often against his will. He knows full well that he’s not a good parent, but he knows perfectly well how to not be a shitty one (Howard Stark had provided a detailed step-by-step What To Not Do guide). He’s not going to force the kid into a life like his, if he doesn’t want it. And he’s 12. What does he know about what he wants to do for the rest of his life? Tony’s not going to force him to make any decisions, yet. He likes Harley too much to do that to him.

And still, he is… important. The closest Tony can get to any emotion is by saying that Harley is an asset to be protected, even though he knows that the kid is much more than that.

So he goes for a quick trip. It won’t take more than three days. He’s been reliably informed (by JARVIS) that it’s spring break, and that children Harley’s age will be on holiday. He has also made sure that the kid isn’t at camp or something. He doubted it, but there was no harm in making sure. He wasn’t procrastinating, actually, why would you ask?

Rose Hill, Tennessee is as small as he remembers. He’d say it was smaller, but he isn’t sure how that would be possible. They have one main road, and that’s it. Literally, that was it. He puts thoughts of interventions and forced expansions out of mind. Maybe the kid will grow up better if he has nothing to do with Tony’s lifestyle.

His mother’s name is Mariah. Hah. The universe is laughing at him. He calls her Ms. Keener. He knows how to be a gentleman. He just choses to not be one, most of the time. He’s perfectly capable of charming the metaphorical pants off anyone he chooses. And no, he’s not going to sleep with the lady, thanks. He feels weird even thinking it, when Harley comes in the room, because whoa, ew. He will not be his father. So he tones down his thoughts, and is a perfect gentleman until Ms. Keener leaves the room. When she’s gone with only three glances over her shoulder to make sure he isn’t a paedophile (he’s not, honest), he reaches out to ruffle the kid’s hair, but Harley has different ideas, and is hugging Tony before he has a chance to say anything about it.

The kid is small. Like. Really small. Practically skin and bone. Hasn’t had his growth spurt yet, clearly. And he’s ridiculously warm through his thin t-shirt. Like he’s running a fever. It takes him a few solid beats to shake the stiffness in his bones and wrap his arms around the kid in return. It’s worth it. He’s not sure if he’s doing it right, because he’s never hugged a child before, and he doesn’t remember if he’d ever been hugged as a child himself, so he’s not sure if he himself liked it. But Harley seems to have no objections to it, and he lets the kid dictate the length of the hug and pull away before it gets creepy. If he tries to memorise what it feels like to have someone voluntarily, platonically touch him without wanting someone from him, well. No one’s the wiser.

Harley’s grinning up at him, and he’s smiling back, and god, he’s really not good with feelings and he needs JARVIS and he bets Steve Perfect Rogers would know exactly what to do, the smug bastard, but he’s not sure what to do. He reverts to what he’s comfortable with, and ruffles Harley’s hair. “Hey kid.” He shakes his head, still smiling.

“Hey Tony.” It’s breath-taking that this one child is the only one who doesn’t mind him without his censors. Well, he’s censoring his language, but that doesn’t count. He’s not censoring himself, and the kid is still happy to see him. Tony wants to _keep_ him so badly that he can’t think straight for a moment. He wants to pick him up and run away with him, but the Jarvis in his head is telling him that that’s not okay, so he doesn’t.

But they chat. And he teaches the kid. Harley is as quick as he remembers. Both with tech, and with people stuff. He’s quicker than Tony is with the people stuff, even though Tony is a solid 31 years older than him. The whole Pepper thing comes out, and Tony’s not sure how appropriate this is, and even though he’s not known for his appropriateness, he finds that he cares what Harley thinks of him. Then again, Harley has spoken to him while he was hyperventilating in a car in the middle of nowhere, so it’s not like he doesn’t know that Tony’s a wreck.

“Listen, kid,” he says, suddenly thinking of a way to put it, interrupting a debate about the pros and cons of streamlining a toy rocket. Harley listens. “I’ve never done this before.” Harley lets him pause, because of his aforementioned skill with people stuff. “I like you. You’re a good kid. You remind me of what I wanted to be when I was your age. You’re smart, and quick, and good. I consider you a friend.” And he hopes Harley understands what he’s saying, because god knows he doesn’t want to be condescending, but he’s 31 years older than him and it’s going to be condescending anyway.

“I’m not father material. I’m not even friend material. I want to be, but I’m not. My dad never taught me, so I just don’t know how. And I’m not going to screw up your life by asking you to be my surrogate kid, all bullshit aside.” He remembers to make eye-contact, because that’s important. He’s not sure why, but it is. “But I want to help you. You helped me, and no amount of stuff I give you can ever match what you did for me. So I’m going to sort something out. I want to be your godfather, or something. This is really awkward, but I’m going to just say it. I see potential in you, okay? I want you to succeed. I want you to be happy, because we’re connected. So I’m going to do my damn best to smooth your way. I probably won’t be a conventional mentor, because I’m shit at stuff like that, and I’ll probably forget your birthday, but kid. I’m watching out for you, okay? When time comes, there’ll be a spot for you at Stark Industries, and I’m going to help you earn it.”

There is a moment of silence.

“And that was incredibly awkward but now it’s over and we can pretend—” but he doesn’t have a chance to finish what he’s saying before Harley is hugging him again, and his reaction is much smoother this time, and he’s proud of himself. Also, he’s incredibly relieved that Harley is normal with him afterwards, because the last thing he wants is it to be weird(er).

He never claimed to be actually mature. He’s just good at making believe.

The years slip through his fingers like water. He doesn’t meet up with Harley often, but when he does, they spend time tinkering and chatting, and Tony does his research and makes sure that he’s got everything ready for the kid when he needs it. Scholarships, applications, whatever. But it’s all the kid’s choice. He’s not going to force him to do anything, and he wants Harley to earn it. He’s not going to speak to scholarship and admission committees on his behalf, because Harley will eventually hate him for it. But if he doesn’t get a scholarship, Tony will help him out. If he doesn’t get admission to MIT, Tony will help him apply to Stanford, and Berkeley, and Cornell. The kid will succeed on his own accord, though. Tony has always been good at spotting potential.

No one else knows about Harley, even five years down the road, or six, or seven. The secret is not a big deal anymore, but Tony knows he’s a dangerous friend to have, especially for someone so young. So he keeps it on the DL, and no reporters have ever turned up at Harley’s doorstep, looking for a story.

Harley’s mum dies, and he doesn’t hear about it for three days. He’s so angry that he walks out of a conference the way he hasn’t, in years, and gets to Rose Hill as fast as possible. Harley is seventeen, and he wouldn’t have wished that on _anyone_ , let alone someone he lov-liked so much. He ends up staying for two weeks, with intermittent trips to New York to smooth things over with Pepper and people in the company. They’re used to him behaving well. There’s an entire generation of accountants and secretaries and R&D kids who’ve never witnessed his misbehaviour. It makes him feel old. He aches for the kid, who must be feeling impossibly young.

At least he’d had Obie. Harley has – well. Harley has him.

He wants to bring Harley to New York, to stay. Mariah and him had an agreement. He is the kid’s official, if not legal, godfather. He’s got lawyers to deal with any shit. He can make it happen, if Harley wants. But Harley is in a state of shock. Tony makes the hospital bills and the rent go away. He takes care of the funeral, and the estate, and makes damned sure that the kid gets everything he’s due. The sister from all those years ago had turned out to be a cousin sister, and the aunt comes over to help Harley, and it’s good that there’s still some family left. It helps. Harley chooses to stay with the aunt, and Tony is not offended. No, he’s really not, no lie. He wants the kid to stay where he’s comfortable. The years ahead are important, and it’s always going to be Harley’s choice. And Tony has a suspicion that the kid is only staying with the aunt because she sounds more distraught than Harley himself does.

It sounds horrible, but he doesn’t mean it that way. He just means that the aunt’s suffered a loss too. They both loved Mariah. They’re close. It’s good. He wants what’s good for Harley. So he takes care of what he can, and stays as long as he is welcome. If Harley crawls into his bed at some point, he’s not going to tell. He has never once thought of Harley as anything but a child. Possibly, his child. If Harley needs comfort, Tony will give what he can, and not a shot of whiskey like Obie had.

There is a lot of explaining to do to Pepper when he gets back, and Fury, and Coulson, and the Team, but even though these people are his friends and he considers them family, sometimes, when they’re not being annoying; Harley is his kid. Not that he’ll ever say, but he is. Some things are just more important.

Harley gets a scholarship, and admission to MIT, and Tony is so unspeakably proud that he finally accepts MIT’s yearly invitation to be a keynote speaker at their biggest science conference. As a first year student, Harley will have a project on display, and Tony wants to see it. They send him another letter to make sure they’d sent it to the right person, and that he, Tony Stark, was actually accepting the invitation. He makes sure that it doesn’t clash with Pepper’s wedding, and confirms it with minimum eye-rolling.

He ignores Steve’s questions when he gets dressed for the conference. He ignores the tail Steve gets Coulson to put on him. If they force him to out Harley, he’s got so many layers of protection around the kid, even SHIELD won’t be able to touch him. And he’s got friends outside who’ve been informed that they have favours to repay, just in case. He’s probably over-reacting (because SHIELD needs him too much to kill him, or publicly embarrass him) but he doesn’t care. No one has ever died from being paranoid.

He gives his speech, and they love him, because he’s awesome. Harley is beaming up at him from the audience, and he winks back when no one is watching. Harley’s one of the few students they’ve asked to present their projects. Tony actually listens, because he’s not had to invest much in Harley, and he’s hardly an asset, but he _is_ important. To Tony, if not to SI. And he’s good. He’s used the retroreflectors on a miniature plane, and modified them to they work even when the plane is moving, even when there is a current running through the plane. The Helicarrier’s shielding panels don’t offer the same reliability, he knows, because it has become a popular pastime of bored New Yorkers to “spot the moving Helicarrier” by its distinctive refraction pattern. His modified retroreflectors vibrate at the same frequency as hot air, and while his project is far from complete, it’s an idea to improve on the shielding panels. There is a practical demonstration, then a Q&A session, and he receives as standing ovation.

He’s grown a lot from the kid who couldn’t pronounce ‘retroreflectors’ properly.

Tony Stark is credited at the end of the presentation, because everyone knows that Iron Man’s shielding is more advanced than the Helicarriers. Tony could have done what Harley did, but he’s not going to say it. What’s important is that he didn’t do it, and Harley did. And he did it well.

He sits through the rest of the presentations with minimum jiggling, because he’s more socialised now than he used to be ten years ago, but he’s just waiting for the moment he can escape and get something to eat. He still can’t remember the last time he had something to eat. Old habits, and all that.

Harley’s ridiculously tall now, the little shit, and so obnoxious about it. He sticks out a hand and Tony’s about to “fake” a tear because this is the first time the kid hasn’t barrelled into him for a hug and he’s not sure he likes it, but then he’s speaking. “I’m Harley Keener,” and Tony has to resist rolling his eyes because he’s old, not senile, but he wants to see this out – maybe it’s the kid maintaining his cover. “I don’t suppose you remember me, but we shared an adventure 10 years ago in Tennessee.” Tony’s narrowing his eyes, because it doesn’t sound like sarcasm, but surely he doesn’t think Tony forgot him, right? “You changed my life. I hope you don’t mind, but ever since that night, I have thought of you as the closest thing I ever had to a father.”

 “You’re trying to guilt trip me, kid.” Tony knows he’s going to respond the same way he had, all those years ago, but Tony’s not going to stand for it. “You should know you don’t need to by now. We’re connected.”

Harley looks a little stunned, but he’s smiling.

“Now get back to your schmoozing, punk. You’ve already rubbed elbows with the most important person in the room.”

Harley swallows. “Really?” he asks, smiling brilliantly and looking around even as his voice shakes, “who?” Tony can’t help it. He knows it’ll attract attention, but he can’t help it. He bursts out laughing, and Harley joins him, and it feels like they’ve come full circle, even though there wasn’t much of a circle to start with.

In his life he’s gained friends and lost friends. He’s gained lovers and lost them too. He can’t think of a single person whom he’d consider family by blood, and very few of his peers have ever gained, or retained that title. Except for this kid, who’s stuck with him. This one kid who still looks at him with the same awe in his eyes as when he was 11 years old, even if it was smothered by thick blankets of sarcasm and snark. He’s made a lot of mistakes in his life too, but he’ll be damned if he makes a mistake of this one good thing. To most of the world, he will die childless and alone. But he knows better. He always has.

**Author's Note:**

> Cross posted to LJ and Tumblr (Obsessionality)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Small Town](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1259023) by [ifitwasribald](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifitwasribald/pseuds/ifitwasribald)




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